Farming & Environment

Here’s a great letter to the editor that appeared in the May 10, 2012 Des Moines Register from CCI member Ray Harden. He does a great job illustrating why Dallas County – or any other county – doesn’t need any more factory farms. Good job Ray!

Dallas County doesn’t need another hog-raising facility

There are currently 51 confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, in Dallas County. Now another one is being planned for the Beaver Township, between Minburn and Bouton, producing 10,000 hogs a year.

The hogs will make 1,277,510 gallons of manure that will be spread on 606 acres twice a year. The waste could flow into Slough Creek, which flows into Beaver Creek and eventually into the Des Moines River near Johnston.

This hog confinement operation could add more pollutants to Iowa’s already impaired waterways. The additional nutrients cause algae blooms and possible fish kills. Also, the runoff contains harmful bacteria and other chemicals that could work their way into the water supply.

People who live near the CAFO will be able to smell it. These CAFOs produce several noxious gases which have human health risk. Besides the odor, the residents of the area will have a reduction in their property values. The developer of the CAFO lives in Boone County, upwind and several miles away from the location.

The Dallas County supervisors will hold a public hearing on this issue before granting the construction permit. The hearing is May 15 at 7 p.m. at 902 Court St. in Adel. Dallas County does not another hog confinement operation that pollutes the water and fouls the air.

— Raymond Harden, Perry

> Learn more about the influx of new/expanding factory farms across the state.

After several years of limited growth in the state, the recent surge in factory farms may be attributed to a number of factors: speculations about hog prices and demand (new trade deal with Korea), a dip in corn prices, increase in chemical fertilizer prices. Or, to simplify it even more, corporate greed.

But, here in Iowa, we also know Gov. Branstad’s administration, Iowa legislators and the corporate ag lobby are pushing for an increasingly lax regulatory environment for corporate hog factories and are intent on gutting the Iowa DNR’s enforcement abilities.

Right now, while hundreds of families are worried sick about their future quality of life, property values and the environment impact, the Association of Business and Industry is pushing a new rule that would put into law that our Iowa Department of Natural Resources take a “hands off ” approach to factory farm enforcement.

The reality is they already do this in too many cases, but formalizing this practice will only lead to more factory farm expansion and more manure spills and water pollution.

Prestage Farms

Based in North Carolina, Prestage Farms is the fifth largest hog corporation in the country with 165,000 sows. They have more than 100 factory farms across the state, including 10 sites already in Poweshiek County where they are trying to build or expand.

Iowa Select Farms

Based in Iowa Falls, Iowa Select Farms is the sixth largest hog corporation in the country with 160,000 sows, with a history of environmental and permit violations here in Iowa. They are looking to do a massive expansion in Northeast Iowa.

Cargill

Based in Minnesota, Cargill is one of the largest privately held corporations in the world. It’s the eighth largest hog corporation in the country with 123,000 sows, slaughtering more than 10 million hogs each year. In addition to backing factory farm construction, they own feed mills and pork processing facilities.

You will rarely see Cargill’s name on a construction permit, but if you do a little digging you will find that they are behind some of the most aggressive factory farm expansion in the state. We have heard they are looking to expand at least 30 sites in Southeast Iowa alone.

Think about the numbers: We can conservatively estimate that each sow farrows 20 pigs a year. That helps put Prestage’s 165,000 sows a year in perspective.

Our factory farm organizing is as much about confronting corporate power as it is helping everyday Iowans protect our environment and stand up for their quality of life. We need to strong policies, regulations and economy that benefits the common good not just corporate interests.

Join the Fight

Tell the Iowa DNR to crack down on factory farms and say no to weakened environmental enforcement. Take action NOW.

Learn More

We had a surge in calls from across the state concerning more than 45 new or expanding factory farm sites in 28 counties.

Below is a map that gives you some idea of where they tried to locate, but what the map doesn’t show you is that there were two to five new or expanding sites in several of these counties. What’s more, most are being built in areas already saturated with factory farms.

The good news is that Iowans fought back against these hog factories and won!

VICTORY! Linn County CCI members stood up for justice and didn’t back down! They successfully stopped a 5,661 head of hog site submitted by Matt Ditch near Center Point. Over 100 community members signed petitions, wrote letters to the editors and testified at Linn County Supervisors meetings which paid off with success! This victory highlights the power of organizing, speaking out and not backing down.

VICTORY! CCI members in Greene County stood united against a 5,000-head, Cargill-backed factory farm, and forced the developer to withdraw his plans. Read about how community pressure led to this big win here!

VICTORY! Story County saw a proposal for a 2,498-head factory farm less than a mile from Hickory Grove Lake that was withdrawn a week later. Concerned citizens organized to make sure that the developer didn’t come back with another proposal. What’s more, members convinced the Board of Supervisors and the Story County Conservation Board to pass resolutions condemning any proposal to build a factory farm confinement in close proximity to a county park. We’re sending a clear message to the developer that the community doesn’t want him to come back with another proposal!

VICTORY! In Poweshiek County, CCI members beat one 5,000-head site and are fighting another. After strong community opposition, Prestage Farms withdrew the first application. Now, the Board of Supervisors are appealing the DNR’s approval of the other. With united community opposition and a lot of hard work, we can stop the second site too! Update: Prestage Farms has re-applied for the first site, but we’re going to keep fighting and keep winning!

VICTORY! In Dallas County, over 55 folks organized to stop a 5,000-head Cargill-backed hog factory and they won. They worked together, stayed hopeful, used a lot of creativity and refused to give up. Read more about the win here.

VICTORY! In April, new members in Floyd County successfully stopped two non-permitted (2,498-head hog each) Iowa Select hog factories from building by pressuring the developer to drop his construction plans.

VICTORY! Jefferson County members successfully stopped a factory farm expansion and indefinitely delayed another this winter.

Join the Fight

2013 is shaping up to be another record-breaking year in the fightback against factory farming. Already, we’re seeing the corporate ag industry push bad bills at the statehouse, setting our state up for another influx of corporate hog manure. We need your help in fighting back, and here are four easy ways you can join the fight:

Imagine a factory farm operator a mile from your local community spills 10,000 gallons of toxic manure into a tile line that runs into a nearby river, lake, or stream, resulting in hundreds of fish kills.

Now imagine instead of investigating the spill and levying the toughest fines and penalties allowed by law, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has an “informal meeting” with the operator, and sends a “letter of noncompliance” asking them not to do it again.

Does that sound like a good deterrent to you?

The sad thing is, the DNR already does this in too many cases. But a new rule being pushed by corporate ag interest group, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) would formalize this bad policy in writing, making it more difficult for everyday people to ensure strong and effective public oversight of factory farm polluters in the future, even if priorities shift in two years with a new governor and a new DNR director.

If passed, ABI’s proposed new rule would signal to the industry that the DNR is going to take a “hands-off” approach to enforcement, which could lead to more manure spills and more water pollution.

The DNR has extended the public comment period. We already have more than 150 comments on record – take two minutes now to add your voice to those opposed to this backwards rule – Click here to take action now!

Iowa CCI members aren’t ones to sit by and just let things happen.

April 23 – More than 20 CCI members gave testimony for more than an hour at the Iowa DNR’s public hearing on this proposed de-regulation attempt.

April 23 – We dropped by the Iowa Association of Business and Industry’s Des Moines office to tell top official Mike Ralston to drop this rule.

March 20 – (photo above) 15 CCI members attended the Environmental Protection Commission meeting to fight back against an attempt by the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI), to weaken the DNR’s ability to crack down on factory farm polluters who violate our clean water laws.

Family Farmers and Ranchers Hold Rally at Iowa State University to Protest the Collusion Between Industrial Meat Production and our Political System

Pink Slime versus Lean, Finely Textured Beef

Tuesday, March 10, 2012

1:30 pm

Kildee Hall, Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa – Tomorrow afternoon family farmers, ranchers and sustainable agriculture advocates will join university students to hold a rally at Iowa State University to call attention to the negative impacts that the deliberate politicization of the recent pink slime controversy has on family farmers and consumer confidence in the safety and integrity of our food supply

The rally will take place in front of Kildee Hall at 1:30 pm, exactly one hour before Iowa Governor Terry Branstad and Congressman Steve King are scheduled to hold an event called, “The Truth” a press conference regarding “Lean Finely Textured Beef” or pink slime, as it has become known. The rally organized by family farmers and organizations was put together in an effort to correct the misleading propaganda being put forward by the meat industry and politicians.

The recent controversy surrounding ground beef has brought to the public’s attention that an estimated 70 percent of ground beef in the U.S. contains an inferior grade beef parts mixture known as pink slime or “lean, finely textured beef”. While the issue has been around for several years, the controversy reached a boiling point when the USDA announced that it planned to order more than 7 million pounds for the National School Lunch Program, which according to federal regulations allows ground beef to contain up to 15 percent of the substance by weight.

The recent controversy has once again laid bare the continued problems that industrial agriculture has in hiding their worst practices from the American public and brought to light the negative consequence that industrial meat production has on family farmers and consumer confidence.

“Transparency, knowledge and choice – that is what consumers need in their spending decisions,” said Chris Petersen, a farmer from Clear Lake, Iowa and president of Iowa Farmers Union. “The facts are now coming in and once again people are questioning our food system blessed by the FDA and USDA and a lot of politicians influenced by processors, industrial agriculture, lobbyists and campaign contributions.”

Petersen’s comment about transparency in food choice and undue political influence is especially important considering the revelation that Eldon and Regina Roth, the owners of Beef Products Inc., the world’s largest producer of pink slime, have contributed more an estimated $800,000 to local, state and federal elected officials, including more than $150,000 to Governor Branstad.

With the recent loss of livestock reforms in Washington DC, known as GIPSA, which were required market protections won under the last 2007 Farm Bill and were gutted last winter under meat industry pressure, farmers and ranchers are outraged over the continued political influence of the meat industry which has driven more than 80,000 beef cattle producers out of business in the past decade with little response from Congress or USDA officials.

“Family farmers and ranchers are being used again by giant agribusiness and their pet policies to gain the public’s support for one of their most unethical practices that actually cuts the demand for beef cattle,” said George Naylor, a farmer near Churdan, Iowa and the past president of the National Family Farm Coalition. “Farmers, ranchers, and the public should not want ‘cheap’ food, but food of good quality that’s affordable,” Naylor continued.

Farmers and ranchers are so outraged over the obvious political attention and deliberate PR spin being waged by the meat industry and the political supporters that cattle producer and independent meat processor Mike Callicrate travelled from as far as Colorado to make sure that America heard the message loud and clear.

“The use of pink slime is a grave betrayal of trust to our beef eating customers. Selling adulterated, otherwise inedible tissue, to uninformed people is wrong. These irresponsible practices by USDA and our short-sighted, greed driven meat industry are ruinous to our reputation, our financial future and America’s food system,” said Callicrate.

“Americans are growing tired of the continued collusion between agribusiness and politicians”, said Dave Murphy of Clear Lake, Iowa, the founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now! a grassroots advocacy organization dedicated to reforming America’s food system. “Real farmers and cattle producers don’t support the use of pink slime in school lunches or our food supply. Not only does it suppress the price farmers receive for their cattle, but it also debases the quality of their product, something they take a lot of pride in producing.”

The farmers and ranchers will be joined by students in the ISU School of Agriculture, activists and members from Food Democracy Now!, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement, Occupy Ames and Occupy ISU.

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